Cannes-tingencies

Here’s Karina Longworth, in SpoutBlog, on the South Korean director Hong Sang-soo’s latest, “Like You Know It All,” which premi&#232red at Cannes on Saturday:

Paradoxically, even as Like You Know It All seems consciously designed to play to a crowd more than any of the filmmaker’s previous films—it’s barely two hours long, it’s overtly hilarious—it doesn’t seem to play as well to those who don’t have a familiarity with Hong’s filmography, who don’t understand where and how he’s poking himself in the ribs.

Here’s Manohla Dargis writing in the New York Times last October, about Hong’s previous film, “Night and Day” (a sharp and daring film that I wrote about at the time, when it screened at the New York Film Festival):

Programmer loyalty seems the only explanation for the inclusion of “Night and Day,” a meandering, bloated bore from the South Korean director Hong Sang-soo.

Even those who do have a familiarity with Hong’s filmography don’t necessarily get what the director is up to. Let’s hope that, at the very least, programmer loyalty will allow us in New York to see “Like You Know It All” at the New York Film Festival this fall.

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